Newsworthies

– From the NY Times. Of course, it’s wonderful that this bill has passed the House; what’s astonishing is that 146 representatives actually voted against it (281 were for). This bill seems like the most basic, obvious open-and-shut move — scrounging for unconvincing “rational” ways to combat it, or all-out distorting the facts of a young man’s death to suit one’s own motives, reveals not only bigotry but a certain political idiocy. It’s not only homophobic, it, well, seems a little desperate. But, really, I’m just preaching to the choir — as I would be if I said anything about the elected Democrats’ willful ignorance of what some have called the major civil rights issue of our day.

– Not okay. Apparently, that Nobel hasn’t yet had the desired effect. And I think that subheadline is worth a look: “additional deployments not announced and rarely noted”? The number of troops being sent to Afghanistan at any given time is something that we, as the public (and as the suppliers of those troops) have a right to know. It’s enough that we’re being yanked into another fruitless, bloody war with little (but very well-publicized!) popular consent; we should at least be well-informed on the process of that war.

– The Post starts off a discussion with “Are young gays taking for granted many of the social freedoms that the first generation of gay activists fought to obtain?” You mean, like, the freedom to come out and not be labeled psychologically ill? Yes. That’s the thing about “obtaining” freedoms — they, hopefully, continue to exist, and become a part of the fabric of daily life (though I might add that those freedoms have not by any means been uniformly attained, and LGBT folks in more conservative communities continue to fight for them). They certainly don’t preclude the fight for broader recognition and rights, as past civil rights movements have shown — in fact, they provide a valuable building block for greater respect. And as Sunday’s march showed, a new and passionate generation of activists will work to stack up a few more of those building blocks: building blocks that, hopefully, will soon be taken for granted themselves.